4 January David Cameron suggests that a longstanding commitment to tax benefits for married people might not be guaranteed because of the scale of Britain's budget deficit. But he reversed his stance within hours, insisting it was something his government would do in the lifetime of the next parliament leading to confusion about the affordability of the plans.
5 January A pledge to introduce 45,000 hospital single rooms is dropped from the draft health manifesto. It said instead it would 'increase the number of single rooms in hospitals, as resources allow'.
16 January A Tory poster campaign ahead of the general election is widely lampooned for showing an apparently airbrushed David Cameron. It triggered hundreds of spoof versions on the internet amending the slogan 'We can't go on like this', including one which read: 'We can't go on like this. I'll cut my taxes, but not yours'.
31 January Cameron is forced into a U-turn on his economic policy. After promising an 'age of austerity', which defined Labour as profligate and the Tories as tough, he acknowledged that going too fast would in fact harm the economic recovery. 'We're not talking about swingeing cuts,' he clarified.
5 February Claims by the shadow home secretary, Chris Grayling, that Labour had presided over a big rise in violent crime are taken to task by Sir Michael Scholar, the UK Statistics Authority chairman, who said such use of the figures was 'likely to mislead the public'.
15 February The Tories run into trouble with statistics again when they misplace a decimal point, claiming that 54% of girls in poorer areas have had a pregnancy by the age of 18. The true figure was 5.4% triggering accusations they are out of touch.
18 February The Tory grandee Nicholas Winterton caused embarrassment to the party when he said passengers in standard class train carriages were 'a totally different type of people' to MPs, when he complained about plans to axe expenses payments for first-class rail travel for politicians.
Seven Tory hiccups on the road to the general election - The Guardian
